Friday Roundup

Well, the internet got what it wanted. At least what the most-vocal members wanted. Microsoft reversed the majority of the restrictions that were going to be imposed on the Xbox One at the cost of some actual, pretty cool features. However, there are new rumors floating around that the awesome-sounding “family share” feature was utter bullshit. Allegedly, you could loan a game to one of ten “family members”, but they would only have access to the game for an hour. That’s not game lending. That’s a glorified demo. To my knowledge, the rumors aren’t confirmed. However, if the family share feature worked the way we assumed it worked, wouldn’t MS have been screaming it from the rafters at E3? If that’s the case, it sounds like the lifting of restrictions was a huge win for everyone.

It’s been a while, roundup reader(s). The Cubs are still bad, still unrecognizable, and still slightly more watchable than last season. They fell behind the Brewers, Travis Wood can’t buy wins, and Kevin Gregg is the best reliever in the world. What a weird game baseball is. Your tips are […]

There are plenty of sour notes that Brian Urlacher played throughout his career, but I’m not going to mention any of those here. Because Urlacher was a great Bear. He was the perfect meatball Bear fan favorite, because he was white, dumb, strong, fearless, and awesome. I’m glad to see he’s retiring a Bear, even if it’s because not even the Vikings seemed to want him that much. And thank goodness we didn’t have to watch Urlacher go on a pathetic self-congratulatory last lap like we watched with felonist rat Ray Lewis last season. I seriously didn’t intend to mention bad things. I’m such a bitch.

We podcasted this week. Well, Dolan and I did. Because we thought Warren was gone. I also vanished from the podcast for two stretches, so you just get Dolan for a while. If that doesn’t have you slathering at the mouth to watch this week’s episode, I don’t know what will.

Cancer fucking sucks. Everyone has been touched by it at some point. It’s a horrible disease, and I wish more people were willing to fund cancer research than boner pills. But they’re not, so cancer continues to kill people we love. I’ve never had it, and I don’t want to trivialize the contributions of the people who help cancer survivors through their ordeals, but I’d be really fucking pissed if I were Anthony Rizzo’s cancer doctors and read his mom getting all the credit for him beating cancer by walking 3.2 miles. The media is weird.

In less (fewer?) than four hours, I’ll be on the road for the Country that Always Sleeps. Thanks for the tips yesterday. I will take them and use them in the brief time I have in Toronto. I have to call Verizon and see if it’s going to cost me 69 (tee-hee!) cents a minute to live tweet from Saturday’s game. I love you all, but you’re not worth $.69/min.

One of the problems with falling behind on the Roundup is coming back to ALL THESE LINKS. I have a few for you today. Hopefully, they’ll last you through the next several days. Because a lovely weekend should be spent obsessively clicking old links from around the internet. Your tips […]

I think anyone–particularly anyone who grew up in Chicago–who has taken a pen to paper or a finger to keyboard with the hope that his writing will in some way entertain another soul adored Roger Ebert. For me, Siskel and Ebert and The Movies was as much a part of growing up as the T.G.I.F. lineup or Thursday nights on NBC. Whether or not you agreed with the content, Ebert’s writing was brilliant, hilarious, insightful, poignant, and always entertaining. On a personal note, Ebert looked, spoke, and loved life like my late uncle, who would have celebrated his 66th birthday yesterday. The two packed more into a shortened life than most men would with twice the time. We should all be so lucky to have lived as they did. So get out there and do it.

Why is the Roundup so late? Because of a horrible, horrible thing that has come to pass. It’s with a sadness in my heart that I report that Google is discontinuing Google Reader. Since HJE has existed, Reader has been the way I do the Roundup. For years, it was the easiest way to pull articles from all the terrible websites I read. Including this one. It was a quick (or exhausting) break from work. Now, I find myself forced to move over to Feedly. Which is…ehhhh. I’m sure Reader will pop up on Google+ anyhow. Which, by the way, is such a refreshingly clean social network. Probably because none of my friends ever post anything on it. Oh, well.

Several days and 36 innings later, I’m back from Spring Training. What did I learn about the Cubs? They’re bad. In all the games I attended, they held a lead for about one inning. Neat. Even when their starting pitchers were recording outs, they were hard-hit. But, hey, I saw at least one Cub home run every game. And two by Paul Konerko! Soon, folks, we’ll have some real baseball to obsess over.